Last month's shadow cabinet reshuffle saw Harriet Harman take on the role of shadow secretary of state for culture, media and sport, while Dan Jarvis, who was elected MP for Barnsley Central in a by-election in March this year, has been made shadow culture minister. Neither have any experience in the culture sector; Jarvis, in fact, has very little experience in any sector other than the armed forces, having served until recently as a soldier with the Parachute Regiment, a career he's pursued since leaving university.

Meanwhile, in government, we have Jeremy Hunt as Harman's opposite number, with Ed Vaizey as minister for culture, communications and the creative industries. These two fare little better in the culture stakes: Hunt set up a PR agency then made a fortune from the specialist publisher Hotcourses; Ed Vaizey trained as a barrister before working in PR.

To sum up the current situation as it stands, then, neither the individuals with ultimate responsibility for the future of the arts in this country nor the ministers charged with holding the government to account have any practical experience of the fields they lead.

Perhaps this isn't such a problem. After all, we don't require our education ministers to have worked in schools or our energy secretaries to have run power stations. There are plenty of politicians who, having gone straight into politics out of university, have no career experience outside the world of politics at all. Our civil servants are a very able bunch, well versed in bringing ministers up to speed on the particulars of their new appointments. You might even argue that there's a benefit to looking on a subject, particularly one as emotive and personal as the arts, with fresh eyes.

It's hardly contentious to suggest, however, that those who can draw upon some relevant practical experience will be at an advantage when it comes to making complex policy decisions, whatever department they're leading. This is particularly the case with the culture sector, I'd argue, because of the nature of the arts themselves. I want the people fighting the corner for theatre, visual arts, music and museums to have had a taste of the unique thrills and frustrations of the creative sectors, to have witnessed first-hand the extraordinary way the arts affect individuals and communities – and ideally before they take up the brief and attempt to get up to speed (as Jarvis has been doing recently). It doesn't much matter the role they've played in the arts, I think – just that they've been there and seen it for themselves.

Of course, practical experience isn't everything: political experience of an area of policy is also crucial. Which is why I'm also concerned by the fact that both of Ed Miliband's new culture appointments come to these roles from government sectors worlds away from the arts. This is clearly something that Jarvis himself is aware of: the week after the reshuffle the minister wrote on his blog that he'd received various messages via Twitter and Facebook professing surprise at his appointment. He responded by drawing attention to a "picture competition" and an Olympics digital bursary scheme he launched in his constituency as evidence of experience with cultural policy. Valuable schemes, I'm sure, but hardly expert qualifications in arts governance.

I'm not trying to get at Jarvis here – it's hard to fault the enthusiasm with which he's been throwing himself into his new role – but I can't help feeling that his and Harman's appointments are cynical ones, more to do with the power-play of cabinet politics than the good of the culture sector itself. Are they really the best people to stand up for the arts in the face of the government's argument that cuts are the only way forward? Or would ministers with a wealth of relevant practical and political experience be better?